Chan Zuckerberg Charity Gives No Tax Benefits to Couple

Prior to the arrival of baby Max, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan revealed in July that they were pregnant with her after three miscarriages as well as years of trying.

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan have announced recently that they are giving away 99 percent of their Facebook’s shares to charity.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is based in DE where there are lower taxes than California, where Zuckerberg lives with his wife Priscilla Chan.

On the note posted regarding the issue, it was stated that Zuckerberg will gift or otherwise direct substantially all of his Facebook stock shares or the net after tax proceeds from the sales of those shares.

Mark Zuckerberg will face less scrutiny of how he gives away his £30billion fortune because he is donating it through a private company. But the organization the couple established was formed as an limited liability company, or LLC, which many questioned because such an entity can be used to generate profits.

The California-based social network’s filing also indicates that Zuckerberg plans to contribute the funds to a new initiative called the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to “advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation”.

Zuckerberg and Chan had foreshadowed this big gesture in a video they made leading up to Max’s birth which was posted on the Zuckerberg Chan Initiative Facebook page yesterday.

The LLC will provide no tax benefits to Zuckerberg or Dr. Chan when they begin transferring 99 percent of their shares to the Initiative, but Zuckerberg said it’ll help them “gain flexibility to execute our mission more effectively”.

Zuckerberg also jumped into the comments on the post, rebutting some critical remarks.

CZI will promote “personalised learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities” by investing in companies, lobbying for legislation and seeking to influence public policy debates. And even when his shares are transferred, he won’t be poor. Moving the money to CZI is not a donation itself, but CZI will make donations and other investments going forward. “And just like everyone else, we will pay capital gains taxes when our shares are sold by the LLC”, he wrote.